


you are my center (when i spin away)

by seditonem



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seditonem/pseuds/seditonem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a Monday night and Erik is going to die.</p>
<p>This is sort of inconvenient, he thinks, spitting blood onto the dirt between his knees, because he has plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are my center (when i spin away)

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: some mild violence, nothing you wouldn't find in the film. nasty language? i wrote this so long ago.

It's a Monday night and Erik is going to die.

This is sort of inconvenient, he thinks, spitting blood onto the dirt between his knees, because he has plans. Also because he didn't particularly want to die in the middle of the ass-end of Switzerland, with a base-ball bat shoved against his windpipe, so tired he thinks his bones might crumble if he stops concentrating on surviving. He has plans. And they don’t involve this kind of shit. They involve much bigger players than this fucked up prison guard – there are a hundred like him, and Erik should just kill him and move on.

"You're going to die," the man says in German. Erik used to like German. German means Mozart and poetry and a girl in the house next door whose lips formed _bitte_ like it was manna from the gods. Her eyes were the kind of green you dream about, like a forest on a particularly clear day, after a beautiful storm. 

Erik used to like German. 

"You're going to die, all alone, here in the dirt, like the little shit you are," the man says, "and there's nothing you can do about it." 

Yeah, Erik thinks, feeling the man’s fingernails pressing hard into the tattooed number on his arm. His eyelids are drooping. He tries to remember the last time he ate something, but it seems a very long time ago. Was it cheese? Dark brown bread? Did the taste feel foreign in his mouth, clogging up the space between his teeth like dough expanding with yeast?

You spend long enough being hungry and eventually food becomes your saviour and your bitterest enemy.

"Do you hear me, you little prick? I'm going to nail your hands to my barn door." His fingers clasp around Erik's jaw, forcing him to look up. God, he's tired. Would it kill them all to allow him an hour's rest? He really just wants to sleep, to shut his eyes and breathe deeply. The man's eyes are alight, like someone lit a match behind those two brown irises, and Erik thinks about how much of a mistake coming here was.

He should have rested up. He should have got strong before he started this, eaten better, worked out. He should have slept, let his anger grow in his bones and define him, before he came after these men. Before he came hunting. Because if you don’t have something that defines you, that drives you to the finish, then you’re going to end up on the dirt, spitting blood and thinking about your dislocated shoulder and how you sort of like the hurt, because it reminds you that for now, you’re still alive. 

Oh well. Look at _should have_ when you're on your knees in the dirt and the moon's reflecting off the windows of the farm in front of you and your mouth is numb and perhaps that's your back tooth caught in the fold of the man’s jacket.

"Gonna nail your hands to my barn door," the man repeats. Erik used to like German used to _used to_ – “Do you understand me? No one is coming to save you.”

The man holds out a handful of rusty nails, palm spread, grinning at Erik. He looks mad; Erik knows that look, has seen it on men who pretend they’re just following orders but really – really they’re just dying to see the look in your eyes as you realise they hold sway over your fate. 

And the nails sing to Erik.

#

Charles sits down next to Erik on the rolling green lawn before the manor and watches as he disassembles his gun slowly in the air, and then puts it back together again. It’s soothing, watching his own power work so clearly. He wonders if Charles ever has that same satisfaction from manipulating his own ability. Probably not - Charles probably uses his with caution, with discretion. 

“I was thinking about the earth’s magnetic field,” Charles says, as Erik lets the gun drop to the grass. He lies back, pillowing his head with his hands, and Charles does the same. They stare at the sky for a moment, and Erik makes a non-committal noise to tell Charles to continue. 

“I was thinking that perhaps you could manipulate the field with your powers,” Charles tells him, and Erik frowns. He shuts his eyes and lets Charles talk; he’s not really ignoring him, but neither is he listening closely. Charles’ voice is like a familiar story read aloud. The lilt and rhythm of his voice is calming. He can worry about the subject matter later on.

Charles pokes him. “Are you even listening to me? I mean it’s very flattering that you find me so fascinating that I can talk you to sleep, but really, could you _pretend_ to take an interest?” he teases, and Erik grins, keeping his eyes shut. 

“I’m sorry, but the sweet music of your voice entranced me. Do continue talking, and I’ll try and keep up.” 

Charles huffs out a laugh, nudging his elbow against Erik’s. 

When he talks again, it’s in a different tone, a confidential one. 

“I must admit I have been very lonely these past few years,” he says, quietly. “There is only so much I can share with Raven, and she seems – different. When we were children it was altogether another story.” He pauses. “I almost fear so much male company has made her rather indifferent towards other women.” 

Erik opens his eyes and stares at the harsh blue sky. 

“I’ve never had the chance to talk to another mutant like myself. Male, I mean,” Charles finishes, and Erik blinks slowly. 

Perhaps Charles is lucky that he was the first. Erik can think of worse people to be introduced to. And perhaps, in the long run, Erik can gently teach Charles that not every mutant is quite as accepting as Charles himself is. 

“What about you?” Charles asks, but his question feels redundant. 

Erik talks anyway.

#

Erik is twenty-five and lying on a motel bed and trying not to think about the flashing neon signs outside his room. 

His room. It smells like cheap burnt oil and latex. There are seven screws in the door, four more in the frame, five in each window frame, and twenty in the bed frame. Enough to kill a man. 

There’s a book in his hands. He’s been pretending to read it for at least half an hour, but really he’s waiting. Waiting for the room next door to become occupied, because the room next door has exactly the same number of screws as his own. 

And there will be a man in the room next door. And Erik will loosen the screws, one by one, till the glass falls out of the window and the door shudders and becomes free, and the man will sit on the collapsing bed with his whore in his arms, and Erik will press his cheek against the mouldy wallpaper and breathe in the smell of retribution. 

But for now, he’s lying on a motel bed, and he’s pretending to read a book. 

It’s a romance novel. 

#

It’s either very early or very late when Erik opens the door to Charles’ room. He’s not sure quite which it is, and neither does it particularly matter; it’s still dark outside, and the quiet of night brackets the house, makes it seem like an island that nothing can touch. Silence laps at the window frames, licking along the walls.

Charles seems to sense this, because he doesn’t say anything when he looks up at Erik. He’s been reading, sitting by the fireplace in a large armchair, and he puts the book down as Erik shuts the door and walks over to him. 

His chest feels very tight as Charles pulls him down into the armchair, and perhaps Erik should feel odd, sprawled over Charles’ lap like this, but the thought is gone as soon as it comes. 

Kissing Charles doesn’t feel like anything completely different. Just a natural continuation of what they already have, what they will have. A bridge between waters. Erik opens his mouth, lets himself drown. Charles presses his lips to Erik’s jaw, to his pulse, lingers there. 

“I’ve been thinking about your powers,” he says, absently, and Erik smiles. 

“Perhaps you should think about your own for a while,” he replies, and Charles’ breath stutters a little as he dips into Erik’s mind. 

#

“I could help,” Charles offers, “with the nightmares.” 

“I suppose you could,” Erik replies, crossing his arms over his chest, still facing the window. Charles doesn’t seem to take this as a _back off_ signal – how could he? – and drapes himself over Erik’s back, pressing his chin into the gentle spot where Erik’s neck meets his shoulder. He shivers a little; it doesn’t seem fair for someone to know his body so well already, where to touch and where to press and where to kiss. 

“You’re so stubborn I’m almost sure we could harness your willpower and use it to drive a large locomotive,” Charles mumbles. 

Erik snorts. “Where would it travel?”

“That famous river in Egypt, Denial,” Charles says, and Erik can feel his smile. He presses a kiss against Erik’s neck and draws him back to bed. The unspoken _Do you want to talk about it?_ hangs in the air, and when they’re entangled in the covers, legs together, Charles’ head against Erik’s heart, he does. 

“I dream of a farmhouse, sometimes,” he says, quietly, because Charles is already falling back asleep. “A farmhouse in a forest and dirt beneath my knees.” 

#

It’s a Monday night and Erik is going to live. 

There are nails in the man’s eyes and mouth and throat and he’s choking, his heart going into cardiac arrest, and Erik is gasping for breath as well, his body convulsing. He’s too tired to use even this much power, he realises, and as soon as it becomes evident that the man is about to die, he stops bothering to drive the nails in any further. 

The dirt feels really rather comfortable. He lies there for a few hours, and then pulls himself off the ground and into the farmhouse. It’s empty, so he pours water into the tin bath and washes the worst of the dirt off his skin. His shoulder aches. Erik knocks over a foot-stool, breaks a leg off, and puts it between his teeth, biting down firmly. Breathes in, out, and pushes his shoulder back into place. It’s his weak shoulder – dislocated so many times that he not only knows how to put it back, but how to remove it himself. 

The small mirror on the wall informs him that he looks like death, and his clothes are still filthy, so he finds the bedroom and helps himself to a new shirt and trousers. They’re too big for him, but perhaps that’s because he can see his bones beneath his skin. 

And then, finally, food. Erik eats slowly, chewing each bite of the bread cautiously. Last time he ate after being so hungry for so long, he vomited it all back up. This time he only has one slice of bread before he stops. Slow and steady. 

It begins to rain as he sits at the table, looking at the man’s things, his knives, his cutlery. Erik swallows thickly and pours himself a glass of cold water. 

The body outside becomes waterlogged. The nails will rust. Erik stares at the barn door, watches the moon move. 

He’s not going to die tonight, but he might as well. Because in the moments that the man held him there in the dirt with the stick and the nails, all Erik could think about was that death was inescapable, even if he survived. That he was only delaying the inevitable.

#

It’s a romance novel. Erik puts it down, stands up, listens carefully for the sound of the man next door. 

In the story the heroine doesn’t die because she’s rescued. But the inescapable truth, Erik thinks, as he presses his cheek to the mouldy wallpaper and listens to the man in the room next to his begin his evening’s pleasure, is that she will die, eventually.

And she will die alone, because no one is coming to save her, not from that final capture. 

#

Charles captures the white queen and sits back in his chair. Erik mutters something about insufferable intelligence and tries to scrabble a hold onto a draw, but it’s futile. 

“You’re distracted,” Charles observes, and Erik sort of wants to punch him, just as much as he wants to kiss him. 

“You could say that,” he says, eventually, and moves his last pawn. Charles takes that as well, and Erik rolls his eyes, leaning back in his chair and slouching. Charles’ eyes follow the line of his body, and that, at least, Erik can be pleased with. 

“Well, it can’t be about the chess game, because I think it’s fair enough to say that I’ve beaten you enough times for you to be used to the outcome,” Charles grins, and pours them each another glass. He licks his lips and observes Erik thoughtfully. “Raven told me you interrupted her reading with some very profound thoughts.” 

Erik grimaces and sighs. He’d found Raven reading a romance novel in the library, and had recognised it as one he’d once flicked through. Amused, he’d called her on her subject of choice. She’d been defensive, and it was all rather amusing to him, until she’d angrily mentioned that at least the story had a happy ending, unlike most of life. 

“They don’t have a happy ending,” Erik had said, coldly. “Happy endings are rather impossible, don’t you think? We all die alone.” 

“You left her rather confused,” Charles continues, tracing the rim of his glass. 

Erik rubs a hand over his face. “You, the eternal optimist, couldn’t possibly agree, of course,” he says, and Charles nods slightly. “And I will never agree with the idea of happy endings. So we find ourselves at an impasse.” 

“But I doubt you will die alone,” Charles states, after a moment of silence. Erik stares at him, and then has to look away. There’s a look in Charles’ eyes which is dangerous. 

It’s dangerous because Erik thinks, _I will, but I want to believe you._


End file.
